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from the announcement of evergrande real estate's financial fraud in march to the maximum penalties imposed by the two departments on september 13, pwc has been "terminated" by at least 60 companies.

according to ifind data from tonghuashun and incomplete statistics from the paper, at least 60 companies have ended their cooperation with pwc since march 18, including 36 a-share listed companies, 7 hong kong-listed companies, 16 fund companies and 1 non-listed company.

it is worth mentioning that the dismissal storm of pwc in the fund industry is getting more and more intense. on september 14, five fund companies including huaan, baoying, hui'an, yimi and puyin ansheng "broke up" with pwc. in late august and early september this year, fund companies including e fund, tianhong, huatai-pinebridge and southern had terminated their contracts with pwc. hongtu innovation fund had already parted ways with pwc in june.

"previous rumors of pwc's punishment have not been realized, and some fund companies may be waiting and watching. with pwc's business suspended, there may be more and more re-hiring actions, including by fund companies," a market insider told the paper.

on september 13, the china securities regulatory commission and the ministry of finance issued a penalty notice against pricewaterhousecoopers. pricewaterhousecoopers was suspended for half a year and its guangzhou branch was closed, with a total fine of 441 million yuan.

fund "exchange wave" may come

a large number of fund companies have dismissed pwc.

on september 14, five fund companies including huaan fund, baoying fund, hui'an fund, yimi fund and puyin ansheng issued announcements on the change of accounting firms for their funds.

specifically, huaan fund announced that starting from september 13, the accounting firm of its seven products, including huaan ces hong kong stock connect select 100 etf linkage, huaan csi mainland new energy theme etf launch linkage, and huaan cyclical return hybrid launch, will be changed from pricewaterhousecoopers to kpmg huazhen accounting firm (special general partnership).

according to the announcement of baoying fund, the accounting firm of dozens of its funds was changed from pricewaterhousecoopers zhongtian accounting firm (special general partnership) to rongcheng accounting firm (special general partnership) on september 12.

it is worth mentioning that as early as august 7, baoying fund had changed the accounting firm of one of its products from pricewaterhousecoopers to rongcheng.

hui'an fund announced that from september 13, the accounting firm of more than 60 funds under its umbrella will be changed from pricewaterhousecoopers to rongcheng accounting firm (hereinafter referred to as rongcheng), involving all the company's products.

yimi fund also announced that all 10 funds under the company will change their law firms from pricewaterhousecoopers to rongcheng starting from september 13.

according to an announcement from purong ansheng fund, the accounting firm of its anhe returns regularly opened mixed securities investment fund was changed from pricewaterhousecoopers to rongcheng on september 13.

it is worth noting that since march 18, pwc has been terminated by at least 16 fund companies.

specifically, since september, in addition to the above-mentioned five fund companies, pwc has also been rehired by zhonggeng fund, huabao fund, e fund, tianhong fund, hengyue fund, yinhua fund, etc.

in august, pwc parted ways with huatai bo fund, southern fund, invesco great wall fund and csop asset management.

in addition, on june 29, red soil innovation fund announced that starting from june 25, the accounting firm of its 22 funds will be changed from pricewaterhousecoopers to ernst & young hua ming accounting firm.

a market insider said: "previously, the rumors of pwc's punishment have not been implemented, and some fund companies may be waiting and watching. with pwc's business suspended, fund companies may make more and more changes in hiring."

wind data shows that as of september 14, there were a total of 12,100 funds in the market (main codes only), of which 5,089 were audited by pricewaterhousecoopers, accounting for 41.92%, still nearly half of the fund market.

43 listed companies terminated their contracts

in addition to fund companies, listed companies have more cases of terminating contracts with pwc. since march 18, at least 43 listed companies have terminated their contracts with pwc. among them, there are 36 a-share listed companies and 7 hong kong-listed companies. in addition, china merchants group changed its original cooperation with pwc in june.

specifically, according to ifind data from tonghuashun and incomplete statistics from the paper reporters, 15 former pwc clients have been taken over by ey, namely suzhou bank (002966), ningbo bank (002142), yongshun tai (001338), bank of china (601988), shenma electric power (603530), fuyao glass (600660), cinda real estate (600657), hangzhou bank (600926), china life (601628), china cinda (01359.hk), picc (601319), mindray medical (300760), city beauty (02298.hk), tongrentang technology (01666.hk), and tongrentang china pharmaceutical (03613.hk).

nine former pwc clients were taken over by kpmg, namely china telecom (601728), china merchants energy shipping (601872), china merchants shekou (001979), china merchants property (001914), china merchants group, china taiping (00966.hk), cimc group (000039), and cimc vehicles (301039).

seven former pwc clients were taken over by deloitte, namely dongpeng beverage (605499), ningbo port (601018), ningbo ocean (601022), china railway construction corporation (601390), guangzhou-shenzhen railway (601333), beijing capital airport co., ltd. (00694.hk), and tsingtao brewery (600600).

in addition to the three major accounting firms, domestic firms have taken over a total of 10 former pricewaterhousecoopers clients.

among them, lixin ranked first among domestic firms, taking over a total of four former pwc clients, namely digenealogy (688192), liren & beauty (605136), haitong securities (600837), and shanghai silicon industry (688126).

tianjian, deloitte, zhongxinghua, deloitte china, daxin, and zhonghui anda each took over one company, namely china railway industry (600528), guangdong electric power a (000539), beichen industrial (601588), qingdao port (601298), chuangye environmental protection (600874), and country garden (02007.hk).

in addition, the paper reporters noticed that although some listed companies chose to continue cooperating with pwc in 2024, they adjusted the business that pwc was responsible for, resulting in a significant drop in service fees.

for example, bank of china announced that, based on market information, prudent principles, and considering the business needs of the bank, it agreed to adjust the original arrangement of re-employing pricewaterhousecoopers zhongtian accounting firm (special general partnership) and pricewaterhousecoopers to provide annual audit services to hiring them to provide professional services such as the review of the 2024 interim financial report, with the relevant professional service fee of 35 million yuan. at the same time, it agreed to start the bidding and selection of external auditors for 2024.

in an announcement made by bank of china on march 28, it re-hired pwc zhongtian and pricewaterhousecoopers as its external auditors for 2024. the overall audit fee for the parent company and the group in 2024 was 101 million yuan.

pricewaterhousecoopers suspended for half a year

on september 13, the china securities regulatory commission and the ministry of finance issued a penalty notice against pricewaterhousecoopers. pricewaterhousecoopers was suspended for half a year and its guangzhou branch was closed, with a total fine of 441 million yuan.

the china securities regulatory commission issued an announcement stating that recently, it had imposed administrative penalties on pricewaterhousecoopers for failing to perform its duties diligently in the audit of evergrande real estate's annual report and bond issuance, confiscated pricewaterhousecoopers' entire business income of 27.74 million yuan during the period involved in the case, and imposed a maximum fine of 297 million yuan, for a total of 325 million yuan in fines and confiscations.

on the same day, the ministry of finance issued an announcement stating that it had made an administrative penalty decision against pricewaterhousecoopers and related certified public accountants in response to problems discovered during the inspection.

as for accounting firms, the ministry of finance imposed administrative penalties of confiscation of illegal gains and a total fine of 116 million yuan on pricewaterhousecoopers for its illegal behavior in the audit project of evergrande real estate in 2018. at the same time, the ministry of finance imposed administrative penalties on pricewaterhousecoopers, warning it, suspending its business for 6 months, and revoking its guangzhou branch.

in terms of certified public accountants, the ministry of finance imposed administrative penalties on a total of 11 certified public accountants in this case. specifically, the ministry of finance imposed administrative penalties on the four certified public accountants tang zhenfeng, wei ze, zhu liwei, and cai xiujuan who signed the audit reports of evergrande real estate's relevant financial statements from 2018 to 2020, and revoked their certified public accountant certificates; and imposed administrative penalties of warnings or fines on seven certified public accountants, including chen yuntao, wu de'en, pan guowei, chen zhijie, chen junyu, lu yujie, and jin ying, who participated in the preparation of evergrande real estate's consolidated financial statements.

according to official website information, pwc's global network of member firms covers 151 countries and regions, with more than 364,000 employees. its business scope includes providing services in auditing, consulting and taxation.

pwc china refers to the collective name of pwc global network firms operating in mainland china, hong kong, china and macau, china. pwc zhongtian cpas (special general partnership) is a chinese audit firm that has joined the pwc global network. the administrative penalty issued by the regulatory agency only applies to pwc zhongtian, not to other pwc legal entities that provide non-audit services in mainland china, nor to any pwc legal entity in hong kong, china.